What If Glenn Beck Said This?

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“I think of Obama’s politics as entirely cultural. It is about creating the new America, epitomized by Barack Obama’s racially mixed radicalism. It is about banishing the Bush-Cheney years by celebrating the man hired to destroy the Constitution. It is about dreaming of a new America — the America transformed by the New Deal, by mass immigration of non-whites, by the civil rights era, by Darwinist hostility to religion. It is a kind of new fundamentalism — animated by no policies that one can determine (has anyone ever heard Obama cite how he would balance the budget?). And yet it’s very potent, because it makes up for its minority status with a ferocity and passion that infuses all truly radical populist movements and can swamp lethargic majorities when necessary.”

Well, of course, his habit of imputing radicalism and secret motives to the Left — “I’m going to expose their hidden agenda!” — is why Glenn Beck is often dismissed as a kooky conspiracy theorist. Yet the quote above is not by Beck, but merely a strategically edited version of what Andrew Sullivan actually wrote at The Atlantic Monthly:

“I think of Palin’s politics as entirely cultural. It is about resisting the new America, epitomized by Barack Obama’s racially mixed pragmatism. It is about banishing the Bush-Cheney years by demonizing the man hired to clean up the appalling mess. It is about dreaming of an old America  – the America before the New Deal, before mass immigration of non-whites, before the civil rights era, before Darwin up-ended fundamentalist nuttery. It is a kind of new fundamentalism – animated by no policies that one can determine (has anyone ever heard Palin cite how she would balance the budget?). And yet it’s very potent, because it makes up for its minority status with a ferocity and passion that infuses all truly radical populist movements and can swamp lethargic majorities when necessary.”

Andrew Sullivan is permitted to say anything he wants about Sarah Palin and her supporters, including insinuations of racism, and his editors at the Atlantic simply don’t care.

Why? Because Anti-Palinism sells.

Liberals gobble up Sullivan’s anti-Palin rants and come back for more. It doesn’t matter whether Sullivan is slamming her for “fundamentalist nuttery” or pretending to have secret knowledge of her obstetric history. The editors at the Atlantic would give Alex Jones his own blog if he’d start pushing Palin conspiracies instead of 9/11 conspiracies.

And if you point out that Sully’s treatment of Palin is far more irresponsible than anything Glenn Beck ever said about Barack Obama?

Crickets chirping.

‘The Unfortunately Named Contessa’

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That’s how Andrew Breitbart always refers to MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer, who complained in an interview with Media Bistro about how hard it is to interviewing guests who “come on and they are prepared to be challenging and to be difficult.”

In another segment from the same interview, Brewer says it makes her “crazy” when blogs point out her on-air gaffes, such as the occasion in 2009 when she introduced Jess Jackson as Al Sharpton:

(Via Kyle Drennen at Newsbusters — Part I and Part II.) Brewer typifies why people hate the media: The adversarial stance of some TV personalities who seem to think their job is to orchestrate on-air “gotcha” moments. A similar attitude prevails among a lot of younger print journalists, who have been raised on this kind of stuff.

This “gotcha” dynamic is a function of television, in which the reporter is also a performer and, especially in a live interview, the idea is to push the subject into an on-air conflict. Brewer routinely did this to Republican guests, and so is hated by conservatives, but I’ve seen Sean Hannity do the same thing to hostile guests on Fox, badgering and interrupting them. It’s one of those Marshall McLuhan the-medium-is-the-message aspects of television: It’s show business.

As a print journalist, I’ve never sought that kind of television-style “gotcha” confrontation, because it tends to be counter-productive to the work I’m trying to do. Even if you’re dealing with a hostile source, it’s better to be perceived as harmless or sympathetic than to act like an attack dog.

With a print reporter, sources will just clam up or not return phone calls if you get hostile, whereas most people can’t resist an opportunity to be on TV and once they’re on camera, they usually feel the need to answer even the rudest  questions. So people like Contessa Brewer get used to treating people like crap — and getting away with it, simply because they have the enormous prestige of a network news organization behind them.

“The unfortunately named Contessa” is a creature of TV and epitomizes the values of that medium.

Markos Wants Some Cheese

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To go with that whine:

In case you were wondering why you haven’t seen me on MSNBC recently, it seems that Joe Scarborough, he of the lowest rated morning show in cableland, has blackballed me. And Phil Griffin, the alleged president of MSNBC, is going along with it.

(Via Memeorandum.) Did Moulitsas ever mock MSNBC’s ratings before he got “blackballed”? I doubt it. So his opinions of TV networks are evidently based on whether they book him or not. He explains his alleged victimhood by quoting his Twitter to Scarborough about “a certain dead intern” — a reference to former Scarborough aide Lori Klausutis, about whom Kos had blogged in 2005. Kos quotes an e-mail from MSNBC’s Griffin:

Yes, after I became aware of the ugly cheap shot you took at Joe on Twitter, I asked the teams to take a break from booking you on our shows for a while. I found the comments to be in poor taste, and utterly uncalled for in a civil discourse. . . .
I just don’t know how one could reasonably expect to be welcomed onto our network while publicly antagonizing one of our hosts at the same time.

The key word there is “reasonably.” Exactly how reasonable is it for Markos Moulitsas to incite a war with MSNBC over a Twitter fight with Joe Scarborough in which Kos insinuated that the death of Lori Klausutis was a “scandal” for Scarborough?

BTW, I often watch “Morning Joe,” and Da Tech Guy is a huge fan of the show. And I’m not saying that because I want to get booked on the show, as all the stuff I’ve written about Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews would forestall any such prospect under the Phil Griffin Rule.

Strangely enough, although Rachel Maddow is as hard-left as Olbermann — and once invoked me in a cheap smear on Sarah Palin — I actually don’t mind watching Maddow so much. And my reasons are purely superficial: She’s got a nice smile. Bad politics, but good teeth.

The moral of the story: If you want to be on TV, think before you Tweet.

Machiavellian, in a Good Way

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“[I]f you yield to a threat, you do so in order to avoid war, and more often than not, you do not avoid war. For those before whom you have thus openly demeaned yourself by yielding, will not stop there, but will seek to extort further concessions, and the less they esteem you the more incensed will they become against you.”
— Niccolo Machiavelli, Discourses Book II, Chapter 14

That was quoted by a commenter on the Hot Air thread about Thaddeus Russell’s column opposing the U.S.-Israel alliance. Russell also got smacked by Ron Radosh at PJM, and there is a related thread on Memeorandum. 

Meanwhile, it appears that President Obama has figured out that Israel-bashing is bad politics:

Four months ago, the Obama administration made a politically perilous decision to condemn Israel over a controversial new settlement. The Israel lobby reared up, Netanyahu denounced the administration’s actions, Republican leaders sided with Netanyahu, and Democrats ran for cover.
So on Tuesday, Obama, routed and humiliated by his Israeli counterpart, invited Netanyahu back to the White House for what might be called the Oil of Olay Summit: It was all about saving face.
The president, beaming in the Oval Office with a dour Netanyahu at his side, gushed about the “extraordinary friendship between our two countries.” He performed the Full Monty of pro-Israel pandering: “The bond between the United States and Israel is unbreakable” . . .

Dana Milbank’s derisive references to the “Israel lobby” and “pro-Israel pandering” seem intended mainly to heighten the perception of Obama’s humiliation. What’s interesting to me here is reflexive nature of liberal logic: Because Republicans are viewed as too pro-Israel, therefore Democrats must be anti-Israel.

Thus, any Democrat who is not relentlessly critical of Israel is accused of cowardly “pandering” by the Sirhan Sirhan wing of the Democratic Party.

You Go, Nancy!

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by Smitty

It takes a special kind of chutzpah to encourage people to do things that are not in their best interests. The Lonely Conservative points to the LiarSpeaker of the House, encouraging her doomed troops to go backing into their campaigns at high speed in a Ford Pinto with a full tank, singing the praises of the health care reform.

But at least even a lowly Pinto can have a righteous stereo system. Pondering the appropriate soundtrack for this self-immolation, this blog will suggest sounds of something swirling in the sinus of the Speaker. Feel free to substitute “HealthCare” for “Cocaine” in the following:

The Enterprising Paco updates us on

Donald Berwick as head of Medicare and Medicaid. Berwick is such an astoundingly bad choice that even the most arrogant president in U.S. history didn’t dare to turn him loose before a Senate confirmation hearing.

Sudetenland: Are the Czechs Our Friends?

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This is the question history professor Thaddeus Russell would have had Britons ask each other in 1938, when Neville Chamberlain sold out the Czechs to Hitler at Munich.

Does Israel Make Us Safer?
. . . Though many Americans think of Islamic terrorism against the U.S. as part of an inevitable “clash of cultures,” not one American died at the hands of a politically motivated Arab or Muslim until June 5, 1968, when Robert F. Kennedy was shot to death by Sirhan Sirhan.

Russell then goes on to assert that anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world is entirely a consquence of U.S. policy. Change the policy — especially, end U.S. support for Israel — and everybody who hates us now will be our friends. There are two clear errors in this way of thinking:

  • It is never smart to allow your enemies to tell you who your allies should be.
  • Yielding to aggression tends to result in more aggression.

This is what Churchill understood, but Chamberlain did not. Chamberlain believed that Hitler was an ordinary politician who could be dealt with as if dealing with were any responsible leader. Churchill was never deceived about Hitler’s nature, repeatedly describing him as a “gangster” who could only be stopped by force. So when Hitler, having repudiated the Versailles Treaty, remilitarized the Rhineland and annexed Austria,  then demanded that the Czechs surrender the Sudetenland, Churchill clearly saw that Hitler was preparing for further aggression (i.e., the invasion of Poland) while Chamberlain foolishly thought he could bargain for peace.

Israel is analogous to the Sudetenland here because no change in U.S. policy will appease Hamas, Hezbollah and other America-hating extremists in the Islamic world. Yes, the annihilation of Israel is a major goal of the jihadis, but it is not their only goal.

They are gangsters, as Churchill would say and, to borrow another of Sir Winston’s favorite expressions, those who hope t0 appease these gangsters are feeding the crocodile, hoping to be eaten last.

Russell advocates abandonment of Israel as an act of foreign-policy “realism,” but as Elder of Ziyon says, “This is not realism — this is surrender to an enemy that will be emboldened by a show of such weakness.”

(Cross-posted at the Hot Air Green Room.)

Levi Lied, Sully Cried

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Andrew Sullivan detects a conspiracy to silence the trailer trash hustlers courageous souls who speak the Trig Truth:

In Palinland, no one knows what’s really going on. But I wonder if this is a somewhat panicked response to the recent blip upwards in web interest in the Trig question. With all these family members able to speak to the public and McGinniss digging deeper, Todd and Sarah may have felt the need to crack down and use Levi’s access to Tripp and Bristol as their latest weapon.

This new turn in Sully’s relentless “Fear the Republican Uterus” campaign was necessitated because (a) Levi Johnston finally admitted he’s a liar, and (b) Levi’s sister Mercede claims she’s being “threatened” if she doesn’t stop lying on her blog:

I mentioned on my blog repeatedly that my intention was not to hurt or attack the Palins, but to speak out and tell the public my side of the story. As well as how badly my life, and the lives of our family members, had been impacted by our association with the Palins. . . .
I am moving on with my life, and though I wish my brother would do more to help out with our mom, I know that I am incredibly tough.

Yeah, sure, her life has been badly “impacted” by the Palins and, sure, she’s “moving on” — just as soon as she can figure out some other way to cash in on her brush with fame. Her “side of the story” was only marketable insofar as Mercede could claim to have the scoop for whatever anti-Palin smears she was peddling.

Sullivan can’t seem to accept the obvious conclusion: Mama Meth-head and her brood have been running a scam, premised on the gullibility of “progressives” who were willing to believe anything negative about the Palins. Thanks to Mr. Sex On Skates — about whom Mary Katharine Ham has a few insightful words today — the Johnston clan obtained a bogus credibility as “inside sources,” which they then exploited in hopes of gaining fame and fortune.

Let’s give Levi Johnston this much credit: He may be just bright enough to have figured out that he was being used by Tank Jones and the other cheap hustlers who hitched their wagons to the “Ricky Hollywood” star.

There’s a Conservatives for Palin thread with more than 100 comments. Dan Riehl reminds us how Sully promoted Levi as the real truth-teller.

UPDATE: Duh. Why did I forget to check in with Ace?

Among [Levi Johnston’s] claims: That the Palins frequently spoke of divorce and that Sarah Palin often referred to Trig Palin as their little baby “retard.”
Sullivan took that as fresh evidence that the baby wasn’t hers, of course.

Fear the Republican Uterus!